The Ultimate iPad and iOS Wishlist Thread - 50 Fixes The iPad Still Needs

[bpaluzzi]

I'll poke up again briefly to say that the original poster in no way understood what I meant by my comments.

And that once again the idea of trying to put every feature that anyone could ever want is absolutely the antithesis of good design, and something that Apple will never do.

You don't get something for nothing. Even something as "simple" as being able to freely drag files off an SD card requires a MASSIVE rethink / redesign in what an iPad "is". I don't think (opinion) that you'll ever see Apple make that change, for the simple reason that most people DON'T want it.

I'll keep coming back to the fact that the people on this forum are so far removed (light years) from the target of the audience of these devices that they sometimes have a tough time seeing the forest for the trees.

So you guys can keep coming up with your wishlists, and your "shortcomings" about what would make the iPad a "real tool."

Apple's laughing all the way to the bank, and I'm reminded of the people at DEC, laughing about these new "personal computers", and how they'd never take the place of the micros. Move on or get replaced, folks.

 

[ApplesAOranges]

It´s funny how EVERYONE wanted a tablet computer from Apple, before the iPad was released.

After the release EVERYONE was disappointed and said "iPad sucks and it´s just a big iPod Touch, a toy, etc...".

Now (almost) EVERYONE is saying "we didn´t want a tablet computer anyways, crippled toys are great!".

That´s how Apple brainwashing works!



Here´s the future scenario:

Now (almost) EVERYONE is saying that "iPad with mobile phone OS is great and tablet computers doesn´t make sense at all!".

Apple will release a tablet computer and EVERYONE will say that "tablet computers are great!".



I´m glad I´m not so easily brainwashed although I´m a fan of Apple products.

 

[bpaluzzi]

It´s funny how EVERYONE wanted a tablet computer from Apple, before the iPad was released.

After the release EVERYONE was disappointed and said "iPad sucks and it´s just a big iPod Touch, a toy, etc...".

Now (almost) EVERYONE is saying "we didn´t want a tablet computer anyways, crippled toys are great!".

That´s how Apple brainwashing works!



Here´s the future scenario:

Now (almost) EVERYONE is saying that "iPad with mobile phone OS is great and tablet computers doesn´t make sense at all!".

Apple will release a tablet computer and EVERYONE will say that "tablet computers are great!".



I´m glad I´m not so easily brainwashed although I´m a fan of Apple products.

Nope. Geeks wanted a tablet computer from Apple. Most people had no idea what a tablet computer was.

And keep calling them "crippled toys". It makes me smile. You sound like a doddering old grandfather talking about his grandchildren's new tele-vision. "I don't get this, so it must be junk."

 

[deeddawg]

Geeks wanted a tablet computer from Apple. Most people had no idea what a tablet computer was.

Excellent point. Geeks != Most people.

Apple seems to understand that the key to mass adoption is mass appeal of the whole package, the soup to nuts user experience.

Apple wasn't the first to market an mp3 player; Compaq and Creative were in the hard drive based mp3 player market well ahead of Apple. But neither really gave a solid end-to-end experience. The ipod did and won mass acceptance after providing PC compatibility.

There have been tablet PC's for many years; none of them really took off. Along came the iPad and many techies dismissed it as crippled and too limited. The rest of the world ignored this and ipads flew off the shelves.

Apple seems to "get it" that the key to mass adoption is providing a seamless easy user experience for everyday people.

 

[Stetrain]

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Do you guys really thing that these ideas would be new to Apple? Of course they're considering all of these, if not more. It's an issue of effort vs return, profit margins, quality control, and keeping an even, sustainable pace to the product roadmap.

 

[baummer]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Do you guys really thing that these ideas would be new to Apple? Of course they're considering all of these, if not more. It's an issue of effort vs return, profit margins, quality control, and keeping an even, sustainable pace to the product roadmap.

+1. This is really a futile exercise.

 

[wikoogle]

Nope. Geeks wanted a tablet computer from Apple. Most people had no idea what a tablet computer was.

I already decimated that line of reasoning way back on page 2. You are throwing up a straw man where there is none. None of these wishes turn the iPad into a tablet computer. Tablets are disliked because they are complicated to use. Where as many of these wishes actually make the iPad far simpler and more intuitive to use, not more complicated.

For example, dragging and dropping a photo or video directly into the iPad isn't more complicated, it is actually far simpler than the current method (putting the file on your computer, adding it to your itunes library, connecting your iPad to your computer, making sure all of the other files on your itunes account are also up to date (so you don't accidently lose data when you sync), then syncing your iPad to your computer. That's a lot of steps to accomplish a basic function. One that could be accomplished by simply dragging it off an sd card directly into the iPad.

+1. This is really a futile exercise.

Just about every single post on this forum is a futile exercise. None of it actually accomplishes anything. '

Even if not one person that works on the iPad ever browses the iPad section of the most popular Apple forum on the internet, even then, atleast it's been fun to speculate.

 

[beg_ne]

Refined folders that hold 16 apps or side-scrolling folders that allow an unlimited number of apps, having 9 apps is too few and it looks ugly when you open a folder only to have it be assymetric

FYI iPad holds 20 apps in a folder not 9.

 

[miniConvert]

Just a little note to say that, while there are many things in the original post that I don't think should be concerns of the iPad, there are many improvements that are just crying out to be made. Some of the suggestions hadn't really occurred to me, but I can see how they'd make the iPad much easier to live with when away from iTunes or when it's the sole computer for extended periods.

So, ultimately, I voted Yes.

 

[huskyte]

Was the wish already mentioned to have some sort of connection to your Aperture lib?

Beside a simple one way sync I would like to use the ipad to do at least some basic editing on pics, which includes also the most boring work like geotagging, faces, keywords and so on... and sync it back.

The pic editing features could also be implemented, at least the most basic ones. The way to do it would be to apply masks to the synced thumbnail that is later on (in Aperture when synced) carried out on the real pic.

The organizing and so on are also an issue to me (whats that crappy 'saved photos' folder for)? Useless in my point of view.

Here is the workflow of a photographer: Take the pics, upload them to your ipad and sync them to aperture (the way to do it as of today). Why not to the most utterly basic and boring editing on your way back to the Mac already, such as sorting, rating, keywording, geotagging, cropping, exposure and so on. The CPU power cannot be the reason (if applied to the thumb, not the raw).

Please Apple, don't tell me the iPad is great for photos when it actually is no more than an expensive photo frame.

 

[KeithJenner]

Superb thread. One of the most fun I've read in a while.

The original poll was rubbish, and almost designed to create the arguments. It seems that, confronted with the long list of proposed improvements to the iPad, we could only think either "great, all of those things will really improve the iPad", or "Nope, none of that please, my iPad is perfect"

The original poster's inability to recognise that there is a lot of distance between those two views means that the thread was only going to descend into the rather fun argument that it produced.

There are lots of things on that list that would be very welcome, many that I couldn't care less about, and others that I think would be a bad move. I'm sure that, as others have said, Apple are working on many of them. Others have probably been considered and left behind (maybe to be picked up at a later time). Lots of them will undoubtedly appear on future iPads.

Would I want to get them all now? Certainly not. They would have a huge impact on the usability of the product and would, in my opinion, introduce a lot of the problems that made me move from windows to Mac's in the first place.

Basically, Apples practice seems to be to introduce things steadily, making sure they work well. That will always irritate techies, but the general public seem to like it a lot. There are always restrictions, but the general public appear to prefer reliability ahead of specs. I'm well and truly in that camp myself.

That's why, when people say that a higher resolution screen, for example, will kill the opposition, they are totally wrong. The average iPad/iPhone user has no idea what the screen resolution is. As long as it looks good to them then they don't care. When their phone connection isn't reliable they do care. Usability always trumps specs.

So, in answer to the original question. I hope that Apple are working on many of these things, and I'm certain that they are. I'd like them to introduce them when they are reliable, don't detract from the iPads basic usability (i.e. don't effect battery life, portability and weight), and don't complicate the thing too much.

I suspect that if that had been an option in the poll it would have got quite a few votes.

 

[wikoogle]

Glad you enjoyed reading the thread. I actually think I had more fun writing in it than you had reading it. A lot of stupid comments got owned on page 2/3.

 

[Sedulous]

Many great suggestions already.

One bug I would like squashed is the audio sync problem when playing back m4v/mp4 with 6 ch AAC. Yeah, you can scrub a little to get the audio back to sync, but it is annoying little bug nonetheless.

 

[wikoogle]

Many great suggestions already.

One bug I would like squashed is the audio sync problem when playing back m4v/mp4 with 6 ch AAC. Yeah, you can scrub a little to get the audio back to sync, but it is annoying little bug nonetheless.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

I've never ran into this bug. Are you sure it was already squashed? If not, I'm sure it will be in the next update or two. Apple is very good about doing bug fixes whenever they find out about them.

 

[Scuby]

RFID to let employers use it as an id badge, to let us use it as a credit card, pay toll machines etc.

I though this one was particularly funny... I can just imagine someone winding down their car window and waving their iPad at the machine trying to get it to accept a toll payment. Or hanging an iPad around their neck to use as an ID badge...

David

 

[wikoogle]

I though this one was particularly funny... I can just imagine someone winding down their car window and waving their iPad at the machine trying to get it to accept a toll payment. Or hanging an iPad around their neck to use as an ID badge...

David

Except that's not how it works. Have you ever used EZPass? You don't have to pull it out of your car and wave it around for it to work. It can make the ID without ever taking it out of your car or briefcase or even touching it.

RFID is a really cool tech. If nothing else, you can tag your iPad to yourself and thus even if it gets stolen, it would be easy to track down and prove that the iPad belongs to you. And I'm sure app developers, given the api, could think of much cooler ways to use it as well.

 

[Bytor65]

I voted a big no.

Not because iPad is perfect, but because your list is out of touch with reality.

Whenever I see one of these fan wishlists I am reminded of "The Homer"

 

[wikoogle]

I voted a big no.

Not because iPad is perfect, but because your list is out of touch with reality.

Whenever I see one of these fan wishlists I am reminded of "The Homer"

Again, you're missing the point.

First of all, the Homer is ugly, the iPad 2/3 I illustrated on the other hand makes the original iPad look ugly.

Here is a mockup I made of an iPad 2 that has the exact same external dimensions as the iPad 1 but with a 11" 2048 x 1536 retina display screen, smaller bezel, front facing camera, and no home button.

Vs. Here is a picture of the current iPad (same external dimensions as above) with the current thick bezel, the current 9.7" screen and home button....

Which do you prefer?

More importantly, you are missing the point. People dislike something like the Homer because it's too complicated. On the otherhand, these wishes make the iPad easier to use, not more complicated. Tablets are disliked because they are complicated to use. Where as many of these wishes actually make the iPad far simpler and more intuitive to use.

For example, dragging and dropping a photo or video directly into the iPad isn't more complicated, it is actually far simpler than the current method (putting the file on your computer, adding it to your itunes library, connecting your iPad to your computer, making sure all of the other files on your itunes account are also up to date (so you don't accidently lose data when you sync), then syncing your iPad to your computer. That's a lot of steps to accomplish a basic function. One that could be accomplished by simply dragging it off an sd card directly into the iPad.

 

[Bytor65]

You are missing the point of "The Homer". It wasn't ugly to homer, it was his fan wishlist for everything a car should be.

Fan wishlists are built on naivety and little else. What you are describing is completely off base with Apple design ethos.

If you really think you have some brilliant ideas, put your time/money where you mouth is a build your own tablet. If a handful of guys in India (Notion Ink) can do it, what is your excuse?

 

[Dr McKay]

Oh golly I can't wait to ditch my iPad for a new £8,000 iPad 2

 

[Saladinos]

Agree with the filesystem. Totally disagree on removing the home button, and a lot of the points (e.g. "Smarter OS", with "better autocorrect") are just too vague. Some of the things (e.g. barcode scanner) would be better handled on the AppStore.

I would add a few things:
- Play an iTunes playlist on local notification (who doesn't use their phone as an alarm clock?)
- USB Device Support. At least for standard protocol devices (e.g. mass storage). If we had a filesystem, this would be an easy addition.
- Give apps access to the photo library. I was thinking about making an iPhoto-like app for the iPad once, but abandoned it because it couldn't integrate with the system library and I didn't want to subject users to iTunes file sharing.

 

[bpaluzzi]

- Give apps access to the photo library. I was thinking about making an iPhoto-like app for the iPad once, but abandoned it because it couldn't integrate with the system library and I didn't want to subject users to iTunes file sharing.

You can already do this. Both saving to and reading from the photo roll. Unless I'm not understanding you. I can open up a number of apps currently (Adobe Ideas, PS Express) which all allow me to open up an existing photo, and the results of any edits can be saved back to the roll.

Am I misunderstanding you?

Cheers,
b

 

[wikoogle]

What you are describing is completely off base with Apple design ethos.

People like you pulled out the same exact BS line about multitasking, about a front facing camera on the iPhone, about folders. Hell they said the same exact BS when rumors began that Apple was working on a smartphone.

You haven't a clue about Apple design ethos, at best, you are taking a wild guess.

The fixes in the OP generally make the iPhone far easier to use, more intuitive to use, and no more ancillary than something like multitasking, or folders. How is that off base for Apple. They like doing things that make their products easier and more intuitive to use.

You would have to be a complete moron to compare features in "the Homer" to basic features like drag and dropping videos and photos that make it far easier to use.

 

[Bytor65]

People like you pulled out the same exact BS line about multitasking, about a front facing camera on the iPhone, about folders. Hell they said the same exact BS when rumors began that Apple was working on a smartphone.

You haven't a clue about Apple design ethos, at best, you are taking a wild guess.

The fixes in the OP generally make the iPhone far easier to use, more intuitive to use, and no more ancillary than something like multitasking, or folders. How is that off base for Apple. They like doing things that make their products easier and more intuitive to use.

Wrong. It wasn't people like me. Because I don't agree with those earlier statements.

I can take one look at your image and see that you are missing the boat on design. Apple as comfortable margins for hold the iPad without triggering the screen. You have reduced them much too small to be easily handled. Think! It isn't just for you, but for Grandma too.

You are just as utterly clueless about design when creating your own fan wishlist, as Homer was when he created "The Homer". Naturally you can't see it, anymore than Homer could. Because in your eyes you made it perfect for you. It doesn't matter that to most it would be excessively expensive and actually harder to use for the general public.

 

[Saladinos]

You can already do this. Both saving to and reading from the photo roll. Unless I'm not understanding you. I can open up a number of apps currently (Adobe Ideas, PS Express) which all allow me to open up an existing photo, and the results of any edits can be saved back to the roll.

Am I misunderstanding you?

Cheers,
b

Those apps use a standard control which allows you to import a file in to the current application. Making a better photo library application with this would require the user to import each picture. It's not possible to iterate over the entire photo library and access photos without the user manually selecting the photo.

If, on the other hand, it were possible to get a list of file names for photos on the device (and have access to them, of course), it would be possible to create an application-specific photo database in parallel to the system one.